(almost) beloved
by waterlit
Summary: She is never quite enough. Azula-centric.


**Title: **(almost) beloved

**Pairing: **NIL. Azula-centric.

**Summary: **She is never quite enough.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own ATLA.

**AN:** Thank you for reading.

* * *

"Don't cry," the Princess Ursa said, rocking her swaddled baby gently in her arms. "Go to sleep, dear child."

Barely two months old, the little Fire Princess continued to bawl her lungs out, her screams ricocheting in the room, out the heavy wooden door and across the hallway to Prince Ozai's rooms, where he sat in front of the fire while drafting a military report.

Ozai frowned at the noise. His thin lips pursed as he struck out yet another line. Azula was crying fit to wake Azulon and Ozai shuddered to imagine that happening. His honour would be lowered. With a sigh, Ozai laid his brush down so he could go to Ursa's rooms to check on his noisy daughter.

The maidservants all curtsied when Ozai entered and he swept past them without a glance, as if he had not heard their soft greetings and salutations.

"Why is she still crying?" he asked of his wife. "It's been a whole hour since she started making this infernal noise!"

"I don't know," Ursa said, still rocking the baby, her forehead creased with worry. "Azula refuses to sleep."

"Is she hungry?" Ozai asked, looking down into the scrunched-up face of his daughter.

"No, the wet nurse fed her an hour ago. I don't know what's wrong with her," Ursa said. "Zuko wasn't like that."

"Send her back to the wet nurse," Ozai said. "I want some peace over here."

"But –"

Ozai shook his head as he walked to the door. "No buts, Ursa. Send her back to the nurse. She's too noisy for this part of the palace. She might wake my father. We don't want that."

"You mean you don't want that."

Ozai shrugged. "Send her back to her rooms. I have a few reports to finish by tonight."

"Oh Azula," Ursa said, as the door slammed shut, "please stop crying. Please."

:::

Azula ran across the pavilion, eager to show her mother the turtleduck she had caught. The turtleduck, a tiny thing painted an ugly shade of caramel, wriggled forcefully as it saw the pond recede into the distance, but Azula grinned and held it tight in her tiny palms.

"Mother, look!" Azula cried, coming to a stop by Ursa's silken skirt.

"What is it, dear?" Ursa asked with a smile.

"Look what I caught in the pond!" Azula spread her palms wide, and the tired turtleduck flopped outwards.

Ursa's loose sleeves flew in the wind as she reached out to catch the unfortunate turtleduck before it fell to the floor. "Why did you do that, Azula?"

Azula blinked, unsure what her mother was asking. "Do what?"

"Don't torture the animals needlessly," Ursa said. She bent over her daughter. "Do you understand, Azula? Treat all living creatures with respect. That includes animals. You don't see your brother doing things like that. Now put the turtleduck back where you found it."

Azula did not quite understand, but she nodded her head.

"That's my good child," Ursa said, giving Azula a little prod in the direction of the pond.

Azula ran off with the turtleduck, but days later her attendants would find a dead, sorry-looking turtleduck in a dark corner of her room.

:::

"Azula, that's not how a lady behaves," Ursa said, sighing. "You do not use a fan for fighting. A fan is for flirting, for social situations."

"Why can't I use it?" Azula asked. She was six and headstrong, and a firebending prodigy to boot. She felt strongly that her mother did not understand her, and that knowledge rankled.

"If you need to fight, you can always firebend," Ursa said. "Now back to the fan… "

"Why do I need to use this fan?"

"You're a princess, Azula. A princess must know her etiquette."

"Then I don't want to be a princess," Azula said. "I want to be a powerful Fire Sage."

Ursa turned away. "I wish she was more like Zuko," she whispered to herself. Ursa knew there was something wrong, something overly cruel in her daughter's nature. What Ursa didn't know was that Azula had heard every word she had uttered. What Ursa didn't know was that Azula would never forget those words for the rest of her unhappy, unfulfilled life.

:::

"Mother's gone," Azula said, leaning against Zuko's door.

"What?" Zuko said, sitting up in bed.

Azula rolled her eyes. "You heard me the first time, brother. Better be careful now that there's no one left to protect you."

"What do you mean?" Zuko asked. He sat half shrouded in the darkness but Azula thought he might be about to cry.

Azula smirked. "Grandfather wanted to kill you to punish Father but now he's dead, and Mother is gone. What do you think happened?"

Zuko lit the candles in the room with a clumsy movement. Azula glanced at her brother and relished the look of horror on Zuko's face; laughing, she returned to her room.

Yet, before she fell asleep, Azula thought of her mother and the length Ursa had gone to in order to save Zuko. _Would she have saved me?_ Azula wondered. _Probably not. She never liked me very much._

Azula pressed her lips together and closed her eyes and tried not to think of the dead and gone, and cried herself to sleep.

:::

The war against the Avatar was about to start for real, and Fire Lord Ozai had decided to pass his throne to his ruthless daughter while he himself adopted a new throne, a new style, a new world.

Azula laughed and summoned her attendants to prepare her for her coronation.

_This is my time_, she thought, _finally I am to be the Fire Lord. All shall bow before me; no one will ever dare to oppose me ever again! I will never be vulnerable again. _

Azula's laugh echoed through her dressing chamber, ricocheting off the walls. She glanced at her gilded mirror as an attendant rolled her thick hair up against her scalp. The updo looked promising though the attendant didn't seem to be aware that she might be hurting Azula's head, and there was a tuff of hair that – Azula paused and noticed a flash of red at the right.

Standing there, pale and tired and unsmiling and existing only in the reflection, was Ursa. The older woman shook her head at Azula, who could almost hear her mother saying with soft regret in her tone, _I wish she was more like Zuko. _

"No!" Azula cried, throwing a hairbrush at the mirror, "I will not be like Zuko! I am better than him!"

"Your Highness," the hair attendant said.

Azula pushed the woman away. "Leave! All of you!"

The attendants fell over each other in their scramble to the door.

Azula snarled at the reflection in the mirror. "You abandoned me," she said, "You never loved me. Why?"

"Repent, Azula." Ursa's kindly expression grew into a frown. "Change. You still have time."

"I always knew you preferred Zuzu," Azula said. "You were undiscerning, Mother. Look who's going to become the Fire Lord! Zuzu is too weak, too cowardly. You spoiled him."

"I spoiled you," Ursa said.

"Silence!" Azula shouted, flinging another brush at the mirror. There was a thud as glass fragments littered the floor. Now Azula could see only the left half of Ursa's face. "You always thought that I was a monster. You turned me into one!"

Azula sank to the ground, her soft red robes falling about her. She clutched her face and pulled at her hair and cried.

:::

The new Fire Lord paced the room. "Will she ever get better?"

"It's hard to tell," the Healer said. "I hope we can rehabilitate her."

"What's wrong with her?"

"It's preliminary at this stage, Your Majesty, but I believe an inferiority complex might be at play here."

"What's that?" Zuko asked.

"To put it simply, she never felt quite enough," the Healer said.

Zuko walked across the room and glanced into the next chamber. Azula sat on the floor, her thick hair hanging down over her hunched shoulders, eyes glazed and seemingly frightened of something in the dark right corner of her cell.

"We have a waterbending master in the city," Zuko said. "Perhaps I should ask for her help."

"You mean Master Katara?" the Healer asked.

"Yes. What do you think?"

"She might be able to do something," the Healer said, "or she might not. I am of the opinion that the latter is more probable. This sickness of the mind… is not something easily cured even by a powerful bender."

Zuko shook his head. "Treat her well," he said. "I will be back another day."

Fire Lord Zuko left with the Healer; the door clanged heavily as it closed. Only Azula remained in the suite of cells, curled up on the ground and writhing in the darkness.

_Mother_, Azula whispered to the darkness, _Mother_. In the darkness, rats ran and spiders crawled, and she though she saw Ursa standing whole and tall before her, shaking her head and mouthing the word "monster."


End file.
